LAS VEGAS — The outcome was familiar for the Las Vegas Aces. The feeling and path were not.
With Tuesday’s 107-98 overtime victory against the Indiana Fever, the Aces advanced to the WNBA Finals for the fourth time in the past six years and the third in four seasons under coach Becky Hammon. The past two of those resulted in championships. Yet this season’s run, which started with the team below .500 as recently as July 25, required Las Vegas to overcome a new level of adversity.
“Obviously, we’re not complacent,” league MVP A’ja Wilson said. “It’s not an, ‘Oh, we’re happy to be here,’ because we worked our butts off to get here, but it does definitely feel a lot different than the ones before only because we went through the mud for this. Like Coach always says, we weren’t necessarily buried, we were planted. We sometimes had to let the soil get moisture and then we had to grow. Now we’re still growing.”
Hammon replied to Wilson, sitting next to her postgame, by quoting the Rascal Flatts song “Bless the Broken Road.”
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“Our road has been broken,” Hammon joked. “It’s been a twisty, windy one but here we are.”
That route saw the Aces win their final 16 games of the regular season to secure the No. 2 seed, then go the distance in the opening round against the Seattle Storm (winning the deciding Game 3 at the buzzer 74-73) and now in the semifinals against the short-handed Fever.
“This team, we’ve been through so much early on — so much adversity,” said guard Jewell Loyd, a newcomer to Las Vegas, who previously won championships with the Storm in 2018 and 2020. “Maybe it’s for this reason. We have no idea why we had to take the long way around, the harder path, but for whatever reason we’ve figured out how to do it together.”
On Tuesday, doing it together meant different players carrying the load at different points. For nearly all of regulation, it was Wilson and Jackie Young doing the offensive damage for the Aces. Per ESPN Research, they became the first pair of teammates to top 30 points in the same playoff game in WNBA history.
“Your studs got to be studs this time of year,” Hammon said. “And they were.”
Wilson filled out the box score with 35 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists, 4 steals and 4 blocks. According to ESPN Research, she joined Indiana legend Tamika Catchings — who was courtside for the game — and former Las Vegas teammate Candace Parker as the third player to have at least four in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in the playoffs.
Young, meanwhile, was the first player ever with at least 30 points and 10 assists in a winner-take-all game and did it without a single turnover in more than 43 minutes of action — a career high.
Despite the dominance of Wilson and Young, the Aces couldn’t shake a pesky Indiana team playing without five players due to season-ending injuries, most notably Caitlin Clark. The Fever then lost leading scorer Kelsey Mitchell in the third quarter due to cramping in her lower body that required Mitchell to receive fluids in a nearby hospital.
“When Kelsey went down, I felt we let up,” Hammon said. “That’s a mistake, emotionally. Like I said, they just wouldn’t go away. They played their hearts out.”
A’ja Wilson (22) and Jackie Young (0) became the first pair of teammates to top 30 points in the same playoff game in WNBA history. “Your studs got to be studs this time of year,” said Las Vegas coach Becky Hammon. “And they were.” Ian Maule/Getty Images
Indiana guard Odyssey Sims, a midseason pickup on an injury hardship contract, scored the last of her 10 points in the final quarter to tie the score with 22.5 seconds left in regulation. Las Vegas was unable to score on the final possession, with Young missing at the rim and Loyd just off on a tip-in that could have won the game at the buzzer.
In overtime, with the Fever also down All-Star center Aliyah Boston after she fouled out with 11 points and a game-high 16 rebounds, belonged to the Aces’ role players. Guard Chelsea Gray, who returned to the contest after rolling her ankle in the third quarter and having it retaped in the locker room, scored 9 points on 3-of-3 shooting in the extra session. Loyd added 5 points as Wilson and Young scored only at the free throw line.
“It was a switch just went off in our minds — this is the time,” Wilson said. “This is what we’ve worked so hard to get to. That’s kind of what I saw with this team just buckling down.”
Having survived another test, Las Vegas will host the WNBA’s first best-of-seven Finals against the No. 4 seed Phoenix Mercury starting with Friday’s Game 1. The journey might not be as smooth as 2022 and 2023, but the Aces are hoping it leads to the same outcome: a championship.
“To get here was not easy,” Gray said. “It’s just been a different path for us. We worked so hard in that stretch at the end of July and August to put ourselves in position to fight for home court. That’s what we were able to do.”
